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Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

I'm also puzzled Ryan, I have no idea what this "hybrids water" is that you're so concerned about. Also, who says a hybrid is supposed to recharge its battery when you stop?

I'm afraid you are quite confused as to what a hybrid is. If you don't have access to a hybrid or someone who is knowledgeable about them, please look around this website for information to help come up to speed on what a hybrid is. After that, you will probably revise your opinions.

I see great potential for diesels AND hybrids and that is why I follow this discussion thread. However, it also seems to reveal a lot of confusion by some very opinionated people as to what hybrids are or can be.

Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

What we all should do while comparing gasoline or
diesel cars (and hybrids) we should talk about
the new techology when comparing. Sure there are
diesel cars in Italy and any country that spew
pollution, but the most advanced ones operating
on part bio and sulphur free fuel equipped with
self cleaning particulate filter is cleaner than
anything else.

Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

I agree, Bjorn. If you're going to compare old smokey diesels from the mid-80s to anything, it should be to an out-of-tune gas car from the same vintage. I can assure everyone I've seen plenty of stinky gassers of that age, spewing either oil smoke from burning oil, or black smoke from incomplete combustion due to burning too rich from an old carburettor that's out of adjustment.

In fact it you want to compare an older diesel, it should be to a carburettor-equipped gasser, not a fuel-injected one.

Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

I agree than it is only right to compare the best of breed since they represent the future which is what matters. Likewise, however, we also need to consider the best of hybrids which, since the ones on the road today are mere infants, produced by companies where the majority of the company didn't want to produce them in the first place. With hybrids, it is only fair to look at what they can do.

With electric drivetrains, the 100 mpg vehicle (real 5 adult passenger vehicles) is truly possible and has been demonstrated in production automobiles. I can't see any way that a pure internal combustion engine + transmission can achieve that kind of performance, even if one does every possible mechanical and thermodynamic trick conceivable (diesel, variable displacement cylinder, turbo chargers, heat recovery, CVT, Rotary engine, etc) .

Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

there is an emissions solution that came to market in 2000 that makes comparing emissions a moot point. on my mid 80's nissan 300zx I used to output hc 252 and co .97. by the simple addition of hydrogen and water injection the output dropped to hc 50 and co .09

add that technology (under $1000 installed) to a hybrid burning any kind of fuel and the most notorious emissions are dropped 75-80%

compute too that that this injection yields at least 25% mpg gains (i have seen 26, 51, and 60% gains on different vehicles)

keep in mind too that you can uninstall the unit with barely a hint that it was ever there in 5 minutes or less

My point?

-achieving hybrid by injection is the cheapest alternative considering similar emissions and mpg gains
-can be applied to straight ICEs and electric hybrids and soon diesels too

anyone wanting a product that will pay for itself in savings in few months instead of a few years or decades should check this out

then delve into either buying a hybrid of some sort or instead strap on an electrocharger with an ultracapacitor to help with the stop and go traffic

Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

Although I am a proponent of diesels the gasoline engine
(also the gas/hybrid) has a further possibility of increasing the mpg with another 15-20 % when sulphur
free gasoline come on the market this year. Most people
are not aware of the fact that sulphur free gasoline used
in Japan for many years and in Europe more recently
has this advantage when used in a direct injected
gasoline engine (used in Messerschmitts 190 ww2)
Only Audi A3 and VW 2.0Turbo use this techology
here in the US, but due to high sulphur content in the
gasoline the mpg increase is probably not more than
5 %, but that will change with suphur free gas.
This is because less extra gas is used to burn off
sulphur pollutants in the catalyc converter. I find it it
amazing that the all those motor journalists hasnt
picked up on this. Anothe advantage of these engines
is that thet pollute far less, runs cleaner, goes further
between oilchanges, wear far less and gives more
hps and torque. If building a hybrid cost less money
it will make more sense to combine them with this
kind of engine.

Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

I have a question here. Why can't they design a car that is a Diesel electric????? Yes! A Diesel Hybrid. Diesel already outperforms gas in milage by itself, so comine it with a hybrid powertrains and you could easliy see 60mpg or more!!!

I wonder, are the car manufacturers really daft? Or is there a reason tey can't do this?

Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

i recently dreamed up a scheme to solve the problem of difficulty transporting/storing hydrogen. Combine the hydrogen with stack-gas carbon dioxide to form propane.

i wasn't a good enough chemist to say how costly this would be, or how fuel efficient, but was happy to hear a program (first friday science friday) where nobel laureate chemist George Olah (do a search) was promoting ALMOST my idea. same basic idea, but he wants to combine Hydrogen with CO2 to make methanol.

either one is fine by me, but methanols seems to have the one drawback of being very toxic, compared to propane, and I'm told that it is more corrosive. There may be other advantages to methane i'm unaware of, though.

Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

Malcom,

The problem is that the scheisters who are proposing use of hydrogen expect to get it from removing all the carbon from natural gas. Electrolyzing it from water is way too inefficient to be seriously considered. Just adding the carbon back would kind of undo all that effort.

The reason they want to use hydrogen in the first place is so that they can run it in fuel cells where the carbon in natural gas or propane would gunk up (that's not exactly the technical term :-) the fuel cell membranes.

Your mixing with C02 might make H2 easier to store but you'd still have the all transfer problems at the fuel stations that are associated with filling anything with pressurized gas.